Category Archives: Junk and stuff

A reddit poster asked what people didn’t notice about themselves until someone else pointed it out, and I had something.

I live on the west coast of Earth’s North America and “been” is pronounced in a way that rhymes with “when”. I’ve always pronounced it in a way that rhymes with “bean”. No, I guess it doesn’t just rhyme, it’s phonetically identical. Huh. Anyways, I did it unconsciously even though my whole family (I’ve since checked) uses the “when”-rhyming spelling.

A co-worker both called my attention to it one day AND offered a completely reasonable explanation when I couldn’t think of why. My given first name is ‘Ben’ (phonetically identical to how most people around me pronounce ‘been’) and the co-worker speculated that perhaps I was unconsciously differentiating between the word any my name by grabbing onto the spelling and e-nun-cia-ting the fuck out of it.

I think… I think that’s right. I had no idea until someone pointed that out.

I wonder how long mere humans will stay electable. With social media and whatever follows it, it’s hard to imagine every future candidate being presented with embarrassing pictures and opinions farmed from decades earlier.

“President Pasta-Batman version 4.23, the latest revision to the uniquely named leadership intelligence now in its second term, has signed historic legislation recognizing same sax marriages at a federal level. An avowed jazz lover itself, the program promised that musicians and their closest companions need not be denied the basic rights already available to humans, uplifted primates, and certain species of dolphin.”